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Sunday, April 22, 2018

Today it is very clear that Syrian Arab Republic is one major victim of the great power rivalry in the international politics and probably the first major theatre of the new cold war. The protests started with the limited objective of establishment of democracy in March 2011’s Syrian version of the “Arab Spring” has turned into a non-ending civil war. This civil war has divided the country physically into different zones controlled by different armed groups belonging to different sects or having extra territorial loyalties to different countries such as USA and Turkey. The balkanised state of Syria has seen the emergence of multiple stake holders where apart from the Assad regime no one else has a clear cut legitimate agenda to follow hence the conundrum. The April 7 Chemical attack on Douma (Eastern Ghouta) and subsequent air strikes on April 14 in different parts of Syria by the USA, UK and France adds to this conundrum. The slogan of saving innocent lives looks like an excuse to weaken the attempt of the regime to end the civil war soon. How is that saving the innocent lives?

Friday, April 13, 2018

In a neoliberal economic system, education never encourages the ideas of critical thinking or free knowledge. As Terry Eagleton writes in his article `Death of Universities`,“Since Margaret Thatcher,the role of academia has been to service the status quo, not challenge it in the name of justice, tradition, imagination, human welfare, the free play of the mind or alternative visions of the future.” The world has increasingly been moving towards the idea of education as a service, rather than a public good since the 80’s. India too, has not been lagging behind in this quest.

Since coming into power, the Bharatiya Janata Party has been trying to make the already neoliberal policies of education more aggressive.After a series of fund cuts,seat cuts, withdrawal of fellowships like the not-net fellowship and SC ST scholarships, the BJP hasplayed the trump card. On 20th March, The Human Resources Development Minister, Prakash Javadekar has announced the scheme of Graded Autonomy for 60 Higher Education Institutions out of which 5 are central universities, 21 are state universities,24 deemed universities and 2 private universities. 8 colleges have also been selected as eligible of autonomy.

Sunday, April 8, 2018

The National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS) announced in the Union Budget 2018 has two important components. One, helping the hundred million poor and vulnerable families burdened with hospitalization bill with a coverage limit Rs. 5 lakh per family, two, to trigger the private investments towards those areas and those services for which currently there are no providers or few providers by purchasing their services through NHPS. Any public effort towards providing free (or insurance protected) healthcare access to poor and vulnerable section of the society is a welcome step, but one needs to understand the emerging challenges of insurance-based financing system which would do more damage than gain.

Editorial

How do we see the world? It is neither a gaze, nor is it to invent the predetermined truth, it is to intervene from a position. Our seeing is changing at the same time and without any claim to excavate the unadulterated truth that never existed.
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